1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a method for synchronizing PDCP operations after RRC connection re-establishment in a wireless communication system and a related device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A long-term evolution (LTE) system, initiated by the third generation partnership project (3GPP), is now being regarded as a new radio interface and a radio network architecture that provides a high data rate, low latency, packet optimization, and improved system capacity and coverage. In the LTE system, an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes a plurality of evolved Node-Bs (eNBs) and communicates with a plurality of mobile stations, also referred as user equipments (UEs).
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the architecture of the radio interface protocol of a LTE system according to the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1, the radio interface protocol of the LTE system includes three layers: the Physical Layer (L1), the Data Link Layer (L2), and the Network Layer (L3), wherein a control plane of L3 is a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer, and L2 is further divided into a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer and a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an RRC re-establishment procedure of the LTE system according to the prior art. As can be seen from FIG. 2, if an RRC connection is disconnected due to radio link failure, an RRC re-establishment procedure needs to be initiated to re-establish the RRC connection. In the beginning, the UE 110 sends an RRC Connection Re-establishment request message to the E-UTRAN 120. Upon reception of the RRC Connection re-establishment request message, the E-UTRAN 120 responds by sending an RRC Connection Re-establishment message to the UE 110. When receiving the RRC Connection Re-establishment message, the UE resumes a signal radio bearer 1 (SRB1) and configures a lower layer to re-activate security (including integrity protection and ciphering) using the previously configured algorithm immediately. In other words, integrity protection and ciphering shall be applied to all subsequent messages received and sent by the UE 110. After that, the UE 110 sends an RRC Connection re-establishment complete message to notify the E-UTRAN 120 that the RRC connection is connected again. To resume all radio bearers other than the SRB1, the E-UTRAN 120 shall initiate an RRC Connection reconfiguration procedure after the RRC connection is re-established, wherein the RRC Connection reconfiguration procedure is to modify the RRC connection.
However, it is not clearly specified how to resume SRBs and data radio bearers (DRBs) after the RRC Connection re-establishment procedure and the subsequent RRC connection reconfiguration in some scenarios. For example, if the UE 110 is handed over from a first eNodeB to a second eNodeB, the compressor's context in a transmitting PDCP entity has been updated while the decompressor's context in a receiving PDCP entity has not been updated. Therefore, header decompressions in the receiving PDCP entity cannot decompress the PDCP SDUs correctly after resumption. Hence, a mechanism for synchronizing PDCP operations after RRC connection re-establishment needs to be improved.